Pages

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

A different chapter

I just read my friend Stacey's blog. She recently changed the name of her blog, because after 6 miscarriages she now has a healthy four-month-old baby girl. In describing her decision to rename her blog, she wrote: "This is the same book, but a different chapter."

That's how I feel about this season of unemployment. It's the same book....it's our book, our story, our journey, but it's a different chapter. Our story includes chapters on miscarriage and infertility, chapters on waiting, chapters on adoption, chapters on pregnancy and childbirth, chapters on parenting...and now chapters on unemployment. And, much to my dislike, these chapters on unemployment include more waiting.

I find it interesting that the Lord has us going through a trial that includes a lot of waiting. Then again, maybe all trials include waiting?. When you're looking for a job, you wait for jobs to be posted, you wait for interviews and then you wait to hear from potential employers. You wait, wait and wait some more.

And, if I am brutally honest, I am incredibly tired of waiting. I thought my waiting season was over once we got Samuel. I never expected God would allow us to enter a season of waiting again...or at least so soon.

But we are. And we have. And it's clear that this chapter will also be a defining one in our life, our marriage and our family.

I'm not sure why I didn't think we would wait again? Waiting is referred to so frequently in the Bible, that clearly waiting should be an expected part of life.

It's amazing to me that this chapter so closely resembles our waiting/infertility chapters. We are on an emotional rollercoaster with each potential job. Hope, excitement, waiting, disappointment. While waiting for kids, we rode the rollercoaster every single month. With our job search it's not a rollercoaster that revolves around a monthly cycle, but it's a rollercoaster all the same.

We trust. We hope. We strive to be obedient in our waiting. We pray. We cry. We hope some more. We see no end in sight. We wish we could see how this chapter concludes, but that's not for us to know.

So yes it's a different chapter. This one is titled unemployment. But the lesson is the same as so many other chapters in our family story: We are ultimately waiting on God. All it takes is a barely audible "yes" by my Creator, or a slight motion by His hand, and Ryan could get offered a job today.

The Lord opens and closes our wombs. He directs our relationships. He is in control of our careers.

I'm striving to trust and believe this chapter will conclude in God's perfect timing...and I can't wait to see how He writes the ending.

In Its Time

I am a wife, a mother and a saved-by-grace writer who is learning to rest in the truth that He makes everything beautiful in its time. I write about the One whose timing and ways and plans I do not understand, but who gives joy in the midst of waiting and brings beauty out of ashes.